


Choked Up Serenade

by writerdragonfly



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Cor Leonis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Multi, OT4, Parent Cor Leonis, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Time Skips, boys crying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 14:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18263645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: Some soft boys catch each other being emotional; a series of moments in five interconnected lives.





	Choked Up Serenade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everyperfectsummer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/gifts).



> I've said this all week, but I'm trying an experiment where I stop overthinking every word I write and just post as soon as I get a feel for a good stopping point. I'm posting at least a chapter a day of something until I run out steam. 
> 
> This started out as a 5+1 based on a prompt I saw someone on AO3 answering in another fandom. This... does not answer the prompt. (The prompt and fic response can be found  here.) I couldn’t find the initial tumblr post I saw it on. 
> 
> This fic owes itself to Stars--my younger sibling & Briar Rose. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

* * *

**one: who put baby in the black box?**

* * *

* * *

 

 

Cor Leonis is very much not supposed to be here. Technically speaking, _no one_ from Lucis is supposed to be in Niflheim at all. As a very public friend of the King of Lucis _and_ a prominent member of the Crownsguard, Cor _definitely_ should not be here.

 

He should especially not be walking down the halls of a secret military installation turned experiment hall wearing very little to disguise his identity.

 

Sadly, he is very much doing exactly that.

 

They’d had a man on the inside, someone who had spent more than a number of years playing spy for the Crown. He hadn’t made it to the last three check-ins.

 

There was no evidence he’d been home since the last one he _had_ made. If Cor hadn’t been on just the right side of the country when the third check-in was missed, he very much suspected someone less obvious would be checking in.

 

A lot of people would be far less obvious, truth be told.

 

Still, he was available and close and really, what else would he be doing? Another batch of post-mission paperwork? Hah!

 

He should definitely not be here, but he was and there was nothing for it now.

 

...

 

The halls themselves were fairly bland, metal and stone grey as far as the eye could see. A bit cluttered too, half-packed boxes and crates scattered randomly throughout the building.

 

He finally reaches the door their missing spy reported as his last assignment, a red light above the room designation sign.

 

Red usually didn’t mean anything good.

 

He entered anyway. There was almost definitely stupider things he’d done. Like taking this mission.

  
...  


The lights in the room were dimmed; nothing but a faint, hazard red illuminated the cluttered workspace.

 

There was a chair behind the desk, facing away from the doorway. He waits to be sure... okay, he’s totally hesitating. He’s seen enough movies over the years to expect there to be a dead body in that chair.

 

He’s wrong, though not by much by all appearances.

 

His missing spy is still alive, but he doubts it’ll be for much longer.

 

Cor doesn’t know a lot about what the Magitek program consists of, but he is beginning to get a picture he really didn’t need cleared up.

 

“Bo...ss...” The word is obviously a struggle to say, so Cor gently whistles a shushing sound at the man who looked more like a red eyed zombie than a living being.

 

“Do you want me to bring you home?" Cor asks, but the man makes a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.

 

His fingers slowly move across the desk until he points to a two-letter designation.

 

1-A.  


A room number.

 

Whatever was in there, this man was dying for.

 

“Your mission is complete, Agent Elshett,” Cor says, pulling a knife from the holster in his waist.

 

“Tha...nk... yu.” Elshett manages, closing his eyes for the last time.

 

...

 

He’s not happy with what he’s had to do, but he knows his duty. He knows that Elshett was slowly _dying_ and there was nothing Cor could have done to stop it.

 

He still feels... guilty. For taking the man’s life, despite the muttered thank you.

 

...

 

He breathes in, one deep slow breath. Then out.

 

He stands as he thinks about the room placements.

 

Four floors down, two halls south. His near final destination.

  


...

  


Room 1-A is pitch black when he forces the door open. Automatic lights click on in slow, stuttering movements.

 

The room is set up with rows of thick transparent tubes against the wall, varying stages of a glowing green fluid captured within. There are shapes in some of them, the hint of what looks like limbs peeking through.  

 

He doesn’t know if he wants to know if he’s right.

 

The last tube is empty, a large black box of some kind sitting in front of it. It’s tagged with a printed label, just above a series of circular holes hardly larger than a finger width cut out of the top.

 

_Post-production date: Oct 25_

_Available for Stage One Upgrade and Stasis: Apr 25_

 

It was still in the early morning hours, but it _was_ April 25.

 

He doesn’t really think about it before he opens the box, prying the lid open with the edge of his knife. But, once finally pries it free, he’s immediately inundated with a hoarse, shrill cry.

 

Inside is an _infant_ , naked as the day it was born. Very much a tiny _human_ male, though his skin is sickeningly pale except for splotches of rash-red skin and the inflamed red puffiness and scabbing of _what looks like a tattoo_ on his tiny little wrist.

 

Cor immediately stiffens, eyes wide as he glances over at the other tubes, the faint shape of arms and legs within thick, unnatural _something_. Post-production dates placed on placards before each of them, telling a story he doesn’t want to hear but knows he needs to know.

 

Niflheim is experimenting on human children. Tiny, innocent lives who relied on adults to _take care of their every need._

 

Cor has spent years training himself not to show emotion in his duty. There is a time and place for it, and at the height of a fact-gathering mission isn’t one of them.

 

Still, he can feel a wetness in his eyes as he blinks down at the little boy in front of him. It doesn’t last, he cannot let it. There’s no one in the room to witness, and no one will ever know.

 

He shushes the infant as softly as he can manage, a gentle hand placed on the side of the boy’s face.

 

The baby stops crying, looks up at him with such a surprised look on his face that makes his chest ache.

 

He commits as much as he can to memory, of the room. The placards, the placement, the... children.

 

He can’t save them all. He shouldn’t be here _at all._ No one is supposed to know he’d come inside, and he’s already risked everything by giving the spy a way out before he was completely lost to whatever _scourge_ he’d been infected with.

 

He can’t save all these children; even if he knew what was inside the tanks and how to safely disconnect them.

 

But this, this tiny baby looking up at him like he’s never seen a caring face... he can save this one, he will save this one.

 

Who the hell put Baby in the black box anyway?

**Author's Note:**

> I may have read almost every Cor saves Prompto fic in existence, okay? I decided to say fuck it and let Cor think whatever he wanted to as well. I hope you enjoyed this first bit!


End file.
